Hidden Truths, Uncovered Roots: The Story of The Not-So Only Child

What if one discovery rewrote everything you thought you knew about your life?

When Rich Boerner flew across the country to clean out his late mother’s apartment after her passing, he expected grief — not a total rewrite of his family history. Inside her nightstand, he found a letter that revealed a secret she had kept his entire life: the truth about his father, his identity, and the family he never knew he had.

In this honest and heartfelt conversation, Rich — longtime radio producer, podcaster, storyteller, and author of The Not-So Only Child — shares what it was like to uncover the unimaginable, and how the experience transformed his understanding of love, legacy, and truth.

We talk about:
 • How hidden family stories shape identity and belonging
 • Grieving the loss of a parent while uncovering new truths
 • The emotional impact of silence and secrecy in families
 • What it means to “rewrite” your story with compassion
 • The power of humor, humility, and healing through honesty

Rich’s story reminds us that truth doesn’t erase love — it deepens it. And sometimes, the family we lose isn’t the only one we find.

🎧 Listen and share at thePIGpodcast.com or on your favorite platform.
📖 Purchase the book and connect with Rich.

Chapters

• 0:06 Opening: Drafts Before Truth
• 1:12 Introducing Rich And The Book
• 2:26 The Nightstand Discovery
• 4:54 Narratives We Build From Childhood
• 9:47 Grief’s Hole And Early Years
• 15:12 Single Mom, Sparse Means, Big Love
• 19:55 The Script About “Dad”
• 24:20 Becoming A Parent With No Blueprint
• 28:52 Audiobook As Healing And Legacy
• 34:00 Encouragement, Faith, And Flexibility
• 40:05 Opening Doors And Facing Shadows
• 46:16 Curiosity Over Fear
• 52:05 Baseball As Bond And Identity
• 58:54 Diabetes And The Lost Little League
• 1:05:52 Coaching, Patience, And Redemption
• 1:14:12 Small-Town Life Beside A Big City
• 1:20:10 Radio Breaks, Setbacks, Reinvention
• 1:29:18 Florida To LA: Tumult And Caregiving
• 1:36:41 Losing Mom And Finding Letters
• 1:44:01 Choosing When Not To Reach Out

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:06

Sometimes the stories we inherit aren't the full story. They're just the draft before the truth. When radio producer, author, and storyteller Rich Burner cleaned out his mother's apartment after her passing, he uncovered a secret that changed everything he thought he knew about his life and about family itself.

SPEAKER_01: 0:25

What followed was a journey of self-discovery, forgiveness, and reconnection, long-lost siblings, buried truths, and the realization that love can find its way back even after decades apart. As podcasters who grew up surrounded by the sounds of public radio, and daughters who also lost our mom to cancer, Rich's story resonates deeply. It's about the legacies our mothers leave behind, the stories we tell ourselves, and the power of curiosity to lead us from darkness into understanding.

SPEAKER_00: 0:56

Welcome to the PIG, where we explore life, love, loss, and legacy through real conversations and meaningful stories with purpose, intention, and gratitude. We're Kelly and Aaron, sisters, best friends, sometimes polar opposites, but always deeply connected by the life and love of the woman who taught us to be brave enough to face the truth. Our mother, Marcia.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33

Rich, welcome to the P.I.G. We've been looking forward to this conversation since first learning about your story, and you, of all people, know the power of a good story, having spent most of your entire professional life helping others tell theirs. But a few years ago, you uncovered a story you never expected, your own. What Aaron and I love most about it, and about your book, The Not So Only Child, is how it reminds us that sometimes the story we think we're living isn't the one that was actually written for us. It's just the draft before the truth. And what's so extraordinary about your story is the way you hold both the heartbreak and the humor, how even in the middle of grief, you make us laugh, reflect, and remember that truth and love can coexist. For you, that truth surfaced while cleaning out your mother's apartment after she passed away. Inside a drawer beside her bed, you found something that rewrote everything you thought you knew about your life, your family, and began a journey you never anticipated. The unraveling of a secret, the rediscovery of self, and the redefinition of what family really means.

SPEAKER_05: 2:53

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So well said. Um, it changed everything without it being now gravity's upside down. It felt like that for a little while. You know, we all write a story when we're kids based on who's raising us, where we are, and everything else. And we all have these narratives, and we have the narrative of who we think we are and who we want to be. And generally the who we want to be is to upscale the who we think we are in some way, shape, or form. Sometimes it's fixing things, sometimes it's getting better than sometimes it's showing people. Sometimes it's just to go, okay, this is who I am, and I know my limitations, but this is who I'm going to be. But the who I'm going to be narrative is always attached to that childhood thought of who you are and what you are and all the rest. So when I discovered, uh, and the name of my book is The Not So Only Child, my true story. So the name of the book itself gives away, you know, what I'm going to discover. When I discovered that I had additional family siblings, and discovered some truths behind everything, it rocked my world. It really did. It's not that I didn't think it was ever think it was possible, but you just keep moving forward. You go, okay, this is the information I have. This is what how I'm going to be, and this is who I am. So this stuff stays in the back. It doesn't really need, you know, it might be in the garage in one of those boxes up on the shelf, covered in dust. And, you know, if you need it, you can go get it. But you don't need it. And this, you know, learning this threw it right in my face. Now, being human and being me, what I did was absorb it and check with some family members and and who also knew nothing, didn't have any details they could share. It wasn't like everybody knew but me. And then I said, I'm gonna just put it back in that box. Because it might not have been as high up on a shelf in the garage, might have been on the floor in the garage now. And life kept coming at me and giving me more reasons to investigate or know and find out. But I kept going, nope. And that box kept getting closer and closer. You know, next thing was a knock on the door, and it was like, oh, it's the box. Oh my gosh, the box is here. And then still, you know, and I detailed the story. Still, I was like, nope, nope, don't need to know what's in there. And finally, it was just like someone, you know, knock on the door came, someone said, Hang on, open the box. There it is. And I was like, oh wow. Okay. I don't particularly know why I was that hesitant. I like comfort. I like some forms of predictability. And that was a life that I was like, I just don't know how this is going to go and end. And I don't want to subject, I use the excuse excuse of I don't want to subject my kids and my family to this. I really didn't want to subject me to it. You know, we can use that a lot in life of like, I did this for the family. I did this. And that's part of re the reason a lot of the time. But we use that as our main reason because when we tell people that, they're like, oh yeah, makes total sense. If we say, I was so scared, or I was so worried, or I didn't want to do that, they're like, oh, okay, really. And then it triggers stuff in them about it. Like it just makes a uh-oh, we can't talk about this. We shouldn't talk about this, we shouldn't talk about this. So, anyway, that's my revelation in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_00: 6:14

Gosh, it's so exciting to have you here today. And one of the things that Kelly and I were talking about and discussing is, and what makes today's conversation with you even more special to us is how much our paths intersect. So, like ours, your story is rooted in radio and podcasting, the art of storytelling and sound and connection, which is something that our mom, Marsha, built her life and legacy around in public radio. And she absolutely would have loved podcasting. We have we talk about that all the time. Like it's so fun to be here with mics and headphones, knowing that from beyond she is like beaming. And like our mom, your mom also faced a serious cancer diagnosis and left behind a story that continues to unfold in unexpected and beautiful ways. And one of the things that you just said, which resonates, is that we've all walked through loss. And we've all faced moments where love and truth collide, where legacy becomes less about what's left behind and more about what is finally understood. So that is why we're so grateful to have this conversation with you today and to talk about when the truth we find doesn't destroy us, but actually sets us free. And so shall we start at the beginning, your childhood, life with a single mom, and just let the story unfold from there?

SPEAKER_05: 7:46

Sure, yeah, absolutely. Um, and you know, one of the things you said about, you know, confronting loss is, and y'all know from the experience with your mom and and probably other family members too, the grief, the despair, the pain that comes with that. I call it the giant hole in your heart, which feels like it's going to suck you in, which is uh terrifying and so sad. Just the depth of sad. It's really difficult to explain to somebody if they haven't felt it. In the same way, in a positive way, it's difficult to explain to people what it feels like if you become a parent and that child first arrives. You know, there's there's just these feelings of overwhelming. It's like and people go, like, yeah, I guess, I guess. And then they come back afterward and they go, You're right. I never knew depths of A, B, and C like that before. But yeah, uh I I started out my life, the narrative was what I had in front of me. I was an only child, my mom was a single mom. We weren't doing well. I mean, she wasn't doing well, she was at a startup company, and you know, this was the early 70s, and it was just, you know, I used to complain, how come we eat meatloaf all the time? How come it's only chicken and meatloaf? How come and we didn't go places, we didn't travel and do things, but I had what I needed. And you, you know, when you when you're little like that, and especially in in those times, because there was no internet uh available for me to go and look and go, whoa, why can't we do this? Why can't we do that? It was merely comparison with neighborhood kids and things like that. So really in in retrospect, I was like, yeah, I was just uh sometimes I was whiny, but I was a kid. But we we had family that took helped us and took care of us. We lived in a two-family house, and the neighborhood was in it was Queens adjacent, but it felt like Queens, you know, like five feet between each house, uh, little, you know, postage stamp plots. I it was a house that was converted into two-family. So upstairs we had two uh a small kitchen, which used to be a tiny bedroom, and then two other rooms. One was a living room and one was a bedroom and a small bathroom. And that was it. That was okay. This is what I knew. That was my life. And I would ask mom, what hey, who's my you know, other kids have who's my dad? And my mom always had the same response. It was like name, rank, and serial number. Literally, you know, she could have been reading it off an index card to me. It was a businessman from Milwaukee named Alan Scott, and when he found out we had a relationship, he used to visit on business, and when he found out I was pregnant, he said, I have a family at home and I can never see you again, and that was the end.

SPEAKER_01: 10:21

I was like, That is straight out of the audiobook, Rich. It's so great.

SPEAKER_05: 10:26

Yes, yes, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it was just literally name, rank, and serial number, which was amazing because my mom, you know, I don't think my mom would have been initially great as an improv actor. She had practiced that over and over and had it down for everybody and everything. Uh so you know, I would just go, okay. Well, I said, Well, what do I tell other kids? What do I say just tell them it didn't work out? Okay. I'll just tell so, you know, you just accept that and you move on and go, okay, I just gotta deal with what I deal with. You know, and as you get older, it starts to get uh you you get the pangs, you get more annoying, and you know, I mean, it's like I there's other kids in the neighborhood, and their their dads take them and do this, and do it's like so what happened with me is I made an agreement with myself in those times or during those times to say when I become a parent, I am gonna try to become like the best, most connected parent I can possibly become. Now, my mom was very connected, my mom was a great parent. Um, but as a dad, I will give everything that I can as a dad, though I don't know how to do it. So when it came, you know, if you flash forward a few years, first child, especially when we found out the first first baby's coming. Oh, I'm so nervous. So oh god, especially since being an only child that lived in that environment. I was like, you know, even getting a cat was like another another living being in my uh I was actually happy that it uh they said there was a girl coming. And not that I wouldn't have been happy for for either, but I was it was a relief, I should say. It was a relief that there was a girl coming because I was like, I don't know how to parent, and I definitely don't know how to father, and I don't want to be a disappointment to a little boy. So when the little boy came five years later, I was equally elated because at that point I was like, okay, I know how to parent now, I can figure this out. I got this.

SPEAKER_01: 12:19

I've got some years under my belt.

SPEAKER_05: 12:21

I got some years under my belt. So, but again, it's part of the narrative we built. That was a narrative I built from childhood. It's like I didn't have a dad, so I don't know how to do it. Really? I mean, that I mean, that's not true for anyone. You know, especially when it comes to parenting and doing that stuff. It's really there's so much that's just being a human, being a human and also knowing that you have to guide and protect to a degree because they can't do it themselves up to a certain time.

SPEAKER_01: 12:49

So Aaron and I talk a lot about our children don't come with owner's manuals. And if they did, that might be very, very helpful. Right.

SPEAKER_04: 12:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:59

But since they don't come with an owner's manual, you're right. All we can do is show up as the best human beings we can be with raw vulnerability and authenticity, make a lot of mistakes, and like in life, fail forward and figure it out as we go.

SPEAKER_04: 13:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 13:17

But the most important part of that is being present, which is such a beautiful gift that you got from your mother. Yes. And you describe that so beautifully in the story. And it's one of the things that I love listening to. I will tell you too, it's not often that the audio version of a book is told by the person who actually went through the experience. And so to hear the tone and the intonation and the passion and the emotion, even the elation and sadness in your voice throughout the story was really beautiful and really well done.

SPEAKER_05: 13:59

Oh, thank you. And yeah, that's I mean, that's how the story was ultimately finished, created. You know, obviously I discovered this was going what was what was happening. It took me over a decade to really come to for it to come to a head and me to open that box they kept shoving at me, right? And then came the when I started to share with people and they were like, oh wow, what a story. That's you should write a book. You should write. And I was like, yeah, but when? I don't have time. So I was like, yeah, I need to tell this story because I realized, you know, when my mom passed, the only child that was around was my eldest, and they were only three at the time, deeply connected with my mom, but only three. The others came after. And I was like, they don't know. And there's no way for me to really relay, you know, it's it had a parent conversation. No, dad's telling stories again. You know, there's no way for me to really put a ledger together and put together something that they can go, oh, okay, this is what it was like for him, for them, and this is this is me, part of my legacy here. So I really wanted to do that for them. I didn't have, and I still don't have delusions of, you know, being number one on Oprah's book club and all well and good. If anything like that happened, that's fantastic. But that's not the purpose. The purpose of this was first and foremost have something for them, you know, a legacy piece for them that they could know. And then once I started putting it together, I wanted just share the story with the world, not for me, but I wanted the world to know. And you know, from having listened and whatnot, uh, my mom was a beautiful soul, beautiful human being, very talented, but did not have encouragement to pursue anything in the talent field and whatnot. And there and and had a, I'll call it a very negative self-image. Um, that never she never shared it. It was shared by her not doing things. She never shared it verbally, going, you know, because there are people who will just who are suffering from that that just will spew, and you'll be like, oh my gosh, nope, just like live live within this limits because I can't because of this. And then, you know, hearing stories of being told of like I asked, why, why, why, why? Oh, well, this and that. I would and I'd be horrified. Somebody said that to you. Your parents said that to you? I was like, What? So I wanted that story out there just so a few more humans on the planet could know what a great and wonderful person she was, and how loving and talented and kind and even malleable, you know, given given I'll call it given um that my family was raised, they were raised in a hard, hardcore Roman Catholic. And I'm not going on a religious tangent here, I'm just saying hardcore Roman Catholic. So there were limits they lived within and put with on themselves, but my mom was malleable. I always considered myself the the rebel, and I'd come in and question every and just uh oh, and I and I'm and look, look, mom, look, I've got I've read this entire book. I've read this, I've read every every other religion. I know this, why, why, why, why, why. She would have the conversations with me. And then when she didn't know, she'd just go, I just, I don't know why. I just, I feel like I have to. And I was like, okay, all right. Well, there was even a time when she missed going to mass one Sunday because she was in Florida with us, and we were in the pool in Florida, and all of a sudden she looked at the clock, and the last chance for her to get to mass would be five o'clock mass on Sunday. And it was like 5:15, but she was with me and granddaughter and in the pool, and we're like, Oh, she just got this like face washed. I was like, What's the matter? It didn't dawn on me. And she goes, I just missed the last mask. I was like, Okay. I said, I understand where this is coming from and whatnot. I said, but I said, but mom, I said, you're in here playing with your granddaughter. You're giving such joy to your son and granddaughter and all the rest. I said, I don't think any being or God or anything else is gonna look down and go, Nope, sorry, you didn't come and put a buck in the in the b basket. You can't come in. I said, because really, mom, do you really want to be live in that place? And she was like, Oh yeah, okay, okay. I said, you can put double amount in the basket next week. It's fine, it'll be fine. Um, so anyway, yeah, that that that the purpose was to, you know, get the story out there for my family, but then to share a little bit more about my mom. Plus, when I started getting, you know, as you guys will know, when you start getting positive feedback on something you're performing, you're like, oh, oh, or something you're doing, I'll do this. And that's so I I tried to write this book for 10 years. Ten years it took me to try to write this book. And I had about 70 pages done. And I kept going back. I couldn't figure out the story. I couldn't figure out the tale. I couldn't figure out how to end it, where to go. What it is, I don't want to just get to a dead end and go, okay, and that's the story, and it has no real conclusion. You know, and I tried multiple times, and there was a um a gentleman I work with, I had helped him put his podcast together. He's an ex-NBA player. His name's Paul Shirley. He always uh refers to himself as the 13th man off the bench because he played on a few NBA teams, and but he played a lot in Europe. And I helped him put his book together called Stories I Tell on Dates. It was an audio book that we turned into a podcast. And it did really well. And part of what we did was exactly what I did with my book. I brought it to life with sound and music and minimal amount of voices. In his case, he was always starting each chapter on a date, and then it would evolve into a story about his life. So I said to him, I said, Look, here's the deal, Paul. You're the only male voice in here. I said, But I'm going to use fit folks I know for the female voices. And I did. I I used people to do various female voices that would be there because they weren't they weren't telling stories, they were reaction reaction lines. So he said to me, he said, I saw what you did for me. We were talking, and I said, Dude, I'm banging my head against the wall on this book. I really need to get it done. It's just been it's been 10 years. He goes, goes, I saw what you did with me. Just get in the booth and talk. That's what you do. I was like, Well, what do you mean? He goes, Well, take take the chapters in there with you. He said, Because you never stick to the script anyway. Take the chapters in there with you and just go put it together and see what you get. And it was kind of like light bulb, boom, you know. And I was like, Okay. So that's what I did. I took the first few chapters and I went in the, you know, you know, midnight when everything's done, everybody's in sleep and everything else. I went in the booth and just started going and then put them together. I'll put some music. I'll check, see what we're doing. And I was like, I got one done. And said, okay, well, let me see. I shared it with some friends who work in the podcast industry, my wife and other folks. And they were all like, Oh, I want to hear more. I was like, Oh, okay, well, I have another chapter. Let me do it. So I did the other chapter, and they're like, I need to hear more. I need to, and I was getting, you know, I need to hear more. I was like, oh, this is this is really good. And then they had some good notes too to help me kind of like in the storytelling arc from the point of view of the listener, because that's the most important part when you're doing audio. It's you have to think, how is the listener hearing this? What's happening? But I did the first two chapters and then sat again for a couple of months. Here we go, box in the garage again. And I reconnected um after the holidays, because the holidays had come up, so I got distracted and all the rest and business. And after the holidays, I reconnected with a woman I had worked with in radio 10 at that point, 10 years earlier. And she is this bullion personality. Her name's Tracy. Big, a lot of energy. Tracy's unique in that, for me anyway, with people with that much energy, usually there's a limit I have to put on of how much interaction I can have because it becomes overwhelming, overwhelming. Something about Tracy, it's never overwhelming. She worked in sales in radio, but she came through a career in, you know, studied stage and theater and everything else. So that was her passion. So we're catching up on what's going on in each other's lives. We hadn't talked in a long time. And I just mentioned the book, and she goes, Ooh, can I hear it? I was like, okay, I'll share it with you. So I shared it with her. She sends me an email back and goes, Would you mind if I sent you notes on this? I'm so intrigued. I was like, sure, sure, go for it. So I expected, you know, like three lines about that or whatever. She sends back paragraphs of notes and not negative. There were a few things like I didn't understand this, this didn't really jibe, or the end is I can't wait to hear the next chapter. Well, I hadn't done the next chapter yet. So I'm like, uh oh, okay. I I can't disappoint Tracy. I was like, yeah, of course. So I put together the next I instead of doing one, I did two because I you know the chapters were probably 15 minutes each, right? So I put two chapters together and she's like, This is amazing. I can't believe that you know, it's like so we went like that for a couple of months of me just sending those back. And and and there was one time when I guess when I got to there's really there's a obviously, you know, that there's a turning point in there, and one of the some of the most dramatic chapters happen around nine, 10, whatever. And I happened to fin didn't finish the next chapter and sent her that. And she's like, How could you send me that without sending me the next chapter? I was like, Because it's not done yet. Finish. Yeah, it's like finish, finish, finish. I was like, okay, all right. So while I'm doing this book, and I don't remember the point where it's happening, because now I'm just I'm just moving forward. We're just keep moving forward, moving forward. I still don't know officially what the the rap is gonna be, the end, the goal, where where we're gonna sit down, what table are we gonna sit at when we're done? And as it as I'm doing that one night, I'm just sitting there going out, and all of a sudden it went, oh, like boom. I need here, here, here, done acknowledgements. It just happened, you know, it just happened, and I was like, that's it, that's it. And I I was like, and I talked to my wife, I said, I'm thinking about that. And she's like, Oh, that's perfect. That's perfect, you know. I mean, again, so it really kind of just evolved as it was happening, and a lot of the evolution happened because of connection to other people and feedback I was getting from other people. And uh, you know, like I said, that's part of the whole part of what I uh one of the tan one of the uh themes I have going through the whole book is how the universe has continually pushed me a little bit or given me clues and signs along the way. And I don't think that's just me. I'm not I'm the only person this happens to. I think we all have that. And part of what we need to do is start paying attention to it, you know. I mean, uh it's start paying attention and every now and then open one of those doors, you know? See what it is. You don't have to get crazy and I'm gonna open all nine doors now. Whatever. I mean, it all depends on where your life is at and what's going on. But I think so many times we just keep going based on the narrative we've built. And it could be a childhood narrative, it could be even the narrative that got rewritten for me. It's a new narrative now. But that doesn't mean that narrative can't change again, or I can't alter it, or it can't go here, can't go left, right, or anything else. Because if I the more I say, well, this is now my comfort zone, well, I'm missing so many opportunities then.

SPEAKER_01: 25:50

Just because you open the door and look in the room doesn't mean you have to step into the room. Or you can step across the threshold and feel the energy and get a feel for the space and see what's happening in there and decide, am I gonna go in further or am I gonna just kind of go back out and close this door? Maybe not forever, but maybe for right now.

SPEAKER_05: 26:13

Right, right, exactly. I mean, it's it's just a matter of, you know, if we don't, we bury it. And eventually I gotta believe life will just go like, nah, nah, I'm tired. I'm tired. The universe will be like, nah, I tried. I tried 19 times with you. Uh, I'm gonna give you 20, and if you don't act on 20, we're you're not gonna, you know. And it doesn't mean it's not always the stuff that's ha coming at you, it's not always like, oh, it's gonna be magically beautiful after this. It's literally just things you probably should explore to help become the fullest version of yourself. And again, you know, thanks to uh TV commercials from you know the 80s and everything else and the five six minute abs and all the rest, people think the fullest version of themselves is everything positive. It's all positive, it's all positive. But sometimes the fullest version of yourself is requiring a letting go of a lot of negative stuff or learning to deal with or facing it, uh, you know, it like you need to face and understand your shadow and the shadow side of yourself so that the shadow can't take control of because you can't get rid of the shadow, it's part of us all. It is part of, you know, despite the fact people say, No, I don't even, I don't know, no, it's it's always there. It's always there. But if you learn to and almost, I would say almost befriend it to a degree, then it can never just come in and take the keys from you. You know, for two weeks, you're gonna be a big butthole, you know. You're gonna be, you're just gonna be the biggest jerk on the planet because you're so angry and you're doing and and while you're doing that, you might make some serious mistakes for your relationship, for your life, and can't, it's not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen because you know, like it's now it's like, oh, yeah, I know you're here. I understand you, I'm not afraid of you, I don't hate you, and I know I need to feel this, but I'm gonna feel it, and then I need to let it go.

SPEAKER_00: 28:04

So gosh, it's so beautiful. I uh the word that keeps coming into my mind as you're talking is curiosity. And if we have that spirit of curiosity and are open to what can be, then just as you said, it might not all be positive and good stuff, and it's gonna force you to face some some tough stuff. But being open and being curious enough to open that door or to just step in the room, you know, is is really powerful.

SPEAKER_05: 28:40

Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, and and think of the again, like I said, my mom had me when she was a little bit older. So I always I I I as a child was attached to a generation which probably was more the generation before even my mom than I was. There's their phrases, there's a lot of a lot of negativity, a lot of just do your stick in your role, do what you're told, do what you do the do the stay in your lane, stay in your lane, do this, because this is how it's supposed to be. And thankfully, you know, there are enough folks who remind us that that's not the case, that we can keep going. But when you brought up curiosity, it was like this phrase was, oh, curiosity killed the cat. I'm like, come on, satisfaction brought him back, but he's already you killed him. Curiosity stubbed the cat's toe. It hurt for a week, and now he's ready to go. I mean, you know, it's like yeah. Um, so how can you know if that's the first thing that would people would think when they said curiosity? It's like, well, oh curiosity is terrifying. It's terrifying, and it's not, it's not. It's it's it's a life source. I mean, and it should be. You should wonder why. You should wonder why things work the way they work. How you right on down to how do you I'm listening to a podcast and you know, we I used to think of radio. It's like, I wish we could see the radio waves. There we go. You know. The TV waves and everything else. But then it would terrify so many people because of all the lines going through, you know, and everything else like that. But I just I wish there was a switch so we could just see how this worked. You know how how come, you know, the the earth spinning causes us to stick to the ground? That's crazy in my it's it's insane. But you know, you gotta I I I've always been curious as to the why of everything. And um, you know, that curiosity. But there are certain things, as I told you, certain things that might have been that would led to personal or emotional stuff that I was like, nope, nope, curiosity will kill that cat. Um, or I would just you I would never say I couldn't do it. I would always say it's not the right time. I can't do it because yeah, I got a family, I got kids, I got everything else. I don't want to disrupt. I don't want to disrupt everything. I gotta keep, I gotta gotta, I got gotta, can't, got, I can't, got I can't gotta Okay. Thank you, universe, for ripping that box open and making me see that and helping me move forward now in life. Again, I'm not the bold adventurer who's gonna go, you know, jump off the top of a mountain and parasail down. Though I think I'd really like it. That's a little too terrifying, but um it has opened me up to being flexible and opening doors, like you said, and checking them out and going, what can we do and what can I do? And even doing this book is part of it. Getting this book and publishing this book and now coming out and talking about this book with people is all part of that. You know, there's um in my business life, there's various things that I'm like, okay, let's try it. Let's do this, you know, let's let's see if this works and let's put some time into doing some of this. And you know, there's a a a side business that I'm I've launched with a friend, and this is not about this, but it's it's it's a podcast, a private podcast network and curriculum for middle schoolers that will help them learn how to find their voices and really get comfortable using their voices to tell their own stories. And that is just again, probably 15 years ago, I might not have done it. I'd be like, I can't because I can't because I can't because I can't because. And we did it. And if you know, if we get it in uh 10,000 schools, that's great. If we get it in four, I'm equally happy. I because I want that this is about helping kids learn how to use their voice at that age, you know, that sixth, seventh, eighth grade age. And if they do, they'll have so such a such an advantage as they go forward, not just high school, college, everything else like that, because they will know how to tell their story and not be restricted to emojis and icons and characters and all the rest. Anyway, that that that was a tangent there, but uh said that that's part of what I've learned is like let's just go, let's just go, come on, let's do. Even our move to Portland last year. Like I was in LA for 25 years and we moved up to be closer to family and all the rest. But uh, there's a past version of me that would have been like, nope, unless I was brought here, unless somebody, you know, said, Oh, I have a here's the new job and you have to move here, and here's all the money, I wouldn't have done it.

SPEAKER_00: 33:19

So I love it. I just again, the parallels of our stories are so incredible to me. And so I know that I'm sitting here just like, yep, yep, nodding, because everything that you are saying resonates so deeply with me and I know with Kelly and our own projects, right? The podcast and you know, other projects that we're working on. The boxes, the boxes, you know, and so it's just yeah, that's very cool.

SPEAKER_05: 33:51

Yeah, well, even like I said, even you both starting this podcast when you were taught we were talking before we were recording and everything else, and we talked last week a little bit. You starting this podcast, it's from one of a similar category to me writing this book. You know, it it's a is it, you know, your mom's not on the podcast, but it's a tribute, it's your connection to, and thereby a tribute to your mom and everything she did and the success she had and all the rest. And and for for both of you, like I talked about uh baseball being my connection to my mom, you know, and you guys both have you you get you have that connection too. But when you're doing this, it's almost like it's not just paying tribute, it's almost like you're reconnected, you know, it's like you're reconnected when you're doing this because this is what your mom did and did so well for a living. And then for baseball with my mom, it's like, yeah, that's that's big. It was huge, you know. And being able to, my son, you know, I coached his team for a decade, maybe to 11, 12 years, and and and you know, we went on the travel team and we went to Cooperstown and we did all that. And I did my best not to be the softball, uh, the baseball parent, you see, in there too, and had to manage a lot of that. Yeah, just to be there and be there with him, for him, but not try not try to push him beyond, you know, beyond reality or anything else like that. I just remember it was magic. And then when he was done and finished, and he moved on to high school and whatnot, I remember the year after that we were at a birthday party for my now 13-year-old, and it was in a park and there was baseball, there was a little little league baseball field, and I was like, ah, and I and I wandered over and I stepped out onto the field, and I was like, I started to get emotional. I was alone. I was like, this so I was like, oh gosh, I miss this so much. I told that was so and you know, I mentioned in the book too that was, you know, I was really proud to be able to do that. Uh, I think I did it fairly well. It wasn't necessary for me to judge myself. I I think so based yet, yes, yes, based on how people expect a lot of little league managers and parents get with their kids. You know, like I said, I try, I wanted all these kids to at least enjoy the experience. But we also like to win. So finding that balance, finding that balance was really tough. To me, there was always the point of okay, we're five games into the season. We know what this team is, it's not gonna win a lot of games. Instead of trying to balance in here, you just go, let's maximize the fun for the kids. Because the kids get disappointed when they're losing too. So we have to figure out how to make it fun for them when they're 0 and 11. Because, you know, how do I make especially the kids, the more talented baseball players, because there's always going to be more talented baseball players and and people who are a little further behind, whether it's I I won't say they don't have the ability or talent, they just don't have the experience, they don't have the reps, you know. So how do I keep it? How do I keep them? It's part of my producer mentality. It's the same thing of like, what does it sound like coming out of the speakers? I want to make sure that everyone is at least getting something out of this, there's some level of enjoyment out of this. So, but yeah, that was a long story. That was a long way to give you an answer. I could have just said, Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 37:09

I love it. Yeah, that's okay. This is a stories podcast. Speaking of stories, I don't know how much you want to get into about how you grew up with your mom and kind of what what that life was like for the two of you because you you share it so eloquently and so beautifully in the story. And you were a really curious kid. You asked her a lot of questions, and you asked her a lot of questions about this father who she had the scripted answer for every single time. There's also an incredible story about your passion for baseball and what you weren't able to do as a kid, but that you were able to fulfill as a father, which I just heard in the story that you told.

SPEAKER_05: 38:03

Yeah. Um, as I said, I was always asking questions. I can remember, and they would be like, just because it is, just because it is. Now, kids always ask questions, but mine were often questions like, uh, because I knew we couldn't afford much and everything. I'd be even asked my aunt because my aunt would take care of me during the day when my mom went to work. It's like, why can't people just trade what they do? It's like I was like five. Why can't people just trade what they do? And that way everybody could have everything. She's like, because that's not how it works. I was like, but that seems fair, doesn't it? It's not how it works. It's not how and she wasn't being mean. It was just, it was like, that was, you know, those are great deep philosophical questions I'm asking five-year-olds asking. Um, you know, my uncle, I would, I would like to go that night, he would take, they had a dog, which was my cousin's dog when she was younger and she lived there, but then it became their dog, and they would take him walking to the lots at the end of the block where we used to play. That was our football field and everything else. It's just a grass patch before you got to the freeway. And we'd go walking. And I remember he'd be like, Oh, the questions every night, the questions. I was like, What's what's that star? What's that? He goes, I don't know the stars. I don't know the so he bought me a book so I could look up the stars and everything. I was like, What's that? Why is that? Why is that sound? What's that sound? What's that? He's like, the questions. I was like, I just want to know. I just wanted to know. And the baseball connection, my mom was a huge baseball fan. Now, she as a kid growing up was a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball fan. And then the Brooklyn Dodgers left. So she was left with, you can't become a Yankee fan. Now the Mets come up, they're terrible, but I'm a Mets fan. And I hate the Yankees, and that's it. And that becomes that becomes the persona. You know, I imagine in in Chicago, it's the same probably for the Cubs and the White Sox or whatever, but not the same kind of vehement feeling because just because the Yankees are kind of like have had this dynasty forever. You know, every every every every 10 years or so, it's like, ooh, there's a little dent, but still they have the big shiny Cadillac that keeps driving down the block. And then as I was growing up as a you know, a young kid, the myths, you know, very young, but I don't remember, I don't remember the 69 World Series, but the, you know, like they were in 73 as I was a little kid, and and then they were as just as I was getting like cognizant enough to become a really big fan, they traded Tom Seaver and everybody. And it was just like, now they're terrible for 10 years. Uh so I was left with I'm I'm rooting for a terrible team, but my mom was die hard. Watched every game, sit there, had routines, had everything down, you know, sitting in the chair watching the game, and at certain, and then you know, certain songs she would sing if uh if the guy got a key hit, she'd sing it over and over every time he came up. You know, this, I gotta do this, I gotta do this. And we'd go to probably five, five, six, seven games a year, which for me was super exciting. I belonged to the junior Mets club, so I got to go and you know, we go early and I get a signed autograph and all the rest. It was just this great connection that we had through baseball. Now, I loved to play. When I was younger, I was um, I didn't have a great diet. We didn't have it wasn't great dietary practice in the household. So I was uh heavy as a kid. I say I was when I was I was I was diagnosed at age 10 of type 1 diabetes. But prior to that, I was I was five foot two and 152 pounds. So I wasn't like grossly obese, but I was a I said, I was the kid they would give the we play a game we called Kill the Guy with the ball, where you just had to try and not let them knock you down and take the ball, and everybody else would be piled on top of you. I was the guy that I could hold the ball and I was just give me the ball. No one's taking me down. And when I hit the ball, it would go, you know. So we had a a little league that was part of our town, everything else is kind of just a put together, here's t-shirts, dads are helping on the weekend, and it dissolved. I was like, oh no. So there was a a little league that was Queens based, but you would allow kids from Nassau County to go in there if you had a manager who recommended you. And we had a manager for one of the other kids in the neighborhood, and he's like, Yeah, yeah, I'll I'll drive you there even to the games. And I'll I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm gonna get to play. And they had legit little league fields, you know, with fences and all the rest of the stuff. And I was like, and dugouts. I was like, uniforms and fences and dugouts. Oh my! You know, and and I uh was like, so we signed up and we were ready to go. And tryouts for it were March 1st, and it was February when the type one just exploded in and I was just sick. I missed, I literally went to like three days of school in the whole month of February, and I was just sick and peeing all the time, and I was losing weight, but I wasn't really noticing it. But I'm telling you, I I go and they test my blood sugar, and it's uh 572, which normal blood sugar is 80 to 120. And I they put me in the in the hospital. Now, my doctor at that point, I wasn't an endocrinologist, that's for sure. It was just a family doc. And he's like, I gotta read magazines, you're the first diabetic I have. I was like, that's encouraging. Uh, so they kept me in the hospital for two weeks, for two weeks, you know, while they were trying to figure it out, and I was practicing stabbing oranges with a with a needle so I could learn how to take the shots myself and all the rest. And they didn't know uh because they didn't know about it being carbohydrate-based then. They were like, uh, just stay away from sugar and only eat 2,500 calories a day. I was like, okay. I was like, how about bread? Yeah, bread's fine. I'm like, uh, no, bread's not fine five hours from now. You know, so anyway, I'm in the hospital, I come out, but I I've missed the day I was admitted to the hospital was the day tryouts were. But the neighborhood dad said, Don't worry, he's gonna get picked anyway. It just they just won't, he'll be like one of the last ones picked because they won't see what he has to offer. Okay. So I got picked. Then mom's like, I don't know, I don't know. I just I don't know about this. I'm like, this part of me understands it right now. For you know, being a parent, three-time parent, I get it, but I don't know a whole lot about this. I'm trying to figure it out. I said, Well, you know, I have to go to school and stuff too, so it's pretty much the same. You know, I have to play in in PE and gym, I have to play there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the time comes, and one night the phone rings and I pick it up, and the manager's on the line. Oh I I've I don't remember his name, but he's like, hi, and yeah, you're on my team. I picked you. I'm I, you know, how are you feeling? He knew that I was on I'm feeling good, I'm feeling good. You ready? Great. Okay, our practice schedule starts next Saturday, and you know, we're excited to have you. And you know, you got to come in so you can pick your uniform. I saved a couple of numbers, hear the number op. So I'm like, I'm just I'm I'm like, I'm floating. I'm on cloud nine.

unknown: 44:52

All right.

SPEAKER_05: 44:52

And I see he's I need to talk to your mom or dad first. I'm like, this is my mom. He said, okay, I need to talk to your mom. Okay, so I put my mom on the line and I hear her talking and I hear, uh-huh. Yeah. Well, well, yeah. No, no, no. And I'm like, what is no? No isn't a good word here. I don't want to hear she's like, I'm sorry. I'm I'm so sorry. Yeah, I I no, it's just not gonna not gonna work, sorry, and hangs up the phone. And now I'm standing there like I got tears in my eyes. And I was like, Well, what happened? She goes, I can't, I can't, I can't have you go there and not know that they know how to take care of you and or that you know how to take care of yourself. And I was like, I take care of myself at school, I take care of myself at PE. I do I was like, so ultimately it ends up not happening, and then I didn't play ball because there was no league that I could play in, I wasn't allowed to join. So I didn't really play ball outside of with friends in the lots for about three years, which crushed me because I fell behind all my, you know, all my friends and everybody else that was playing there. I fell behind in my it wasn't like I couldn't play, but again, didn't have the reps. So when it came time in the eighth grade to join a team and go in, I was like, I'm ready, here I go. Now, of course, now I haven't grown at all since that point, maybe an inch, right? So I I used to be one of the tallest kids in the class. Now I'm one of the smallest kids. Or yeah, I'm not tiny, but I'm still one of the smaller kids. And instead of 145 pounds, 150 pounds, I weigh 98 pounds.

SPEAKER_04: 46:26

Oh god.

SPEAKER_05: 46:26

So I'm fast, but when I hit the ball, it does not go as far as it used to.

unknown: 46:32

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 46:32

Right?

SPEAKER_05: 46:33

So so I go and I try out, and I remember trying out, and we came down to came down to the last two cuts on the team. There were two kids. Me and another kid. And the coach calls me in and he says, Hey, look, he's look, for first thing he says, it breaks my heart. I'm like, oh no. It breaks my heart that I'm gonna have to cut you from the team right now. He said, Because I see everything you do, you know, you give, you do, and I can use you all over the field. He said, But I'm short on pitchers, and the other guy has a strong arm, and he may not be able to throw strikes now, but he can scare other hitters. And I need him, I was like, okay, I just so I mean I caught up the following year because I went home and I just I laid into mom and you know, probably more than I should have, and everything else. And I and so she, you know, it paid for me to go to a batting cage that was nearby and everything else. So the next year I made the team and everything else, and it was fine after that, but it was just a matter of that that moment of having that kind of I got to play, I got to be on the field, I got to wear the uniform and everything else, stayed with me, stuck with me. It was it was one of those, you know, we all have those those moments, I call them the dark moments of of pain or where we just feel ultimate sadness. And I'm this is a different kind of grief than when someone passes. This is uh, you know, but it's grief nonetheless. And that just stayed with me and was with me until I got to do and be with my son. Um, and it was like that was like a healing salve to me. I was like, oh, oh, this feels oh, this is great. And that's why I said I had to always be really cognizant and careful that I wasn't becoming one of those. Oh, there's a actually one of those, I guess it's the all state guy. He's I'm a I'm a baseball dad, right? That's one of his commercials right now. I was like, Yeah, that I never became that guy. Um, you know, how can I, how can I balance this and make sure that, you know, and my son, you know, he had up, he was a really talented baseball player. He had up and down years, but you know, especially in the beginning, he would carry a lot of stress with him. And so the first year, every divisions are like two years. His first year was always a challenge in each division, always a challenge. And his second year, he'd always be like, He's an all-star. Let's see, he's an all-star. But his first year always a challenge. And I would, I was like, I don't, I need to push him to finish because we've signed up, but I don't want to push him beyond there. And one time he was probably about nine, and he said, I don't think I want to play, do winter ball and play ball next year. I was like, Okay, I hear you. We were on scooters. I said, Okay, let's stop. I said, We have signed up for this team for the next year, and we'll take winter ball off. We won't do any of that other stuff. Just take some time to breathe. I said, and I'll tell you what, why don't we both go next year and start and play? And I said, if we get 30 days in and you still feel the same way, we're done. We won't do it again. We won't go back. I said, but I feel like you might be missing an opportunity because I feel like you might be judging yourself more harshly than others see you right now. I said, but again, when we get there, we'll reassess before we even start, and then we'll put it on a we'll put it on 30-day clocks from there. So I want you to keep trying, but I'm not gonna say you're pushed or forced to do it. He was like, okay. I was like, I don't know how much of that really got absorbed by a nine-year-old, but we went, and the next year, of course, he was great. He's like, I love this. I don't want to stop, I don't want to stop, I don't want to stop. But it was just a matter of trying to figure out the way. Again, I guess some could look at it and say, oh, look, you pushed him. I did, but sometimes our kids need to be pushed. You know, they need to be pushed because if he'd walked away from that, he would have carried that the rest of his life. As I here's here's why I'm not as good as everyone else, or here's why I failed, as opposed to, you know what? I gave it everything I had and just wasn't for me.

SPEAKER_01: 50:28

So And walk away with your head held very high.

SPEAKER_05: 50:31

Exactly. Exactly, exactly. So, but and and you guys, you know, the baseball connection with you guys, and you guys showed me, you know, your uh pictures with Billy Martin, which was uh amazing to me because I looked at that picture and I saw in that man's face and eyes a look and and that I'd never seen as especially as an opposing as a Mets fan in New York, to me, he was just he was an angry part of that whole dynasty. And the that man in that picture you showed me was this seemed like this warm and compassionate and likable man.

SPEAKER_01: 51:46

He was, and we'll post the picture, Aaron, so people can see it. It's me in my little brownie uniform at five or six years old. I my brownies story is much like your son's baseball story.

SPEAKER_03: 52:00

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01: 52:00

My mom said, just try it. And I came home and I said, This is a total waste of time. I don't like this at all. But I stuck it out for probably 30 days. I wound up not continuing forward with brownies. It wasn't my thing as a little farm and ranch kid, but Billy Martin was a dear friend of our grandfather's, and he would come spend the summers in Colorado with us at the ranch. And so that was a sweet picture of him just being the soft teddy bear of a human being that I got to know as a little girl. Um, that's not the Billy Martin, as you said, that the rest of the world knew in that day.

SPEAKER_05: 52:41

Mm-hmm. Well, you know, I in his defense, and ultimately, you know, to rationalize the story, I can as a Mets fan, I can only say that putting on that Yankee cap must must have made him evil. When he when he took it off, oh, I'm back, I'm okay. Sir, we pay you a lot, you gotta work. He's like, okay, you know, put on the cap, and there it was.

SPEAKER_01: 53:03

Well, he was very passionate about his baseball, that is for sure. And most people remember Billy for the flying dirt, right? You know, kicking at the the umpires and the rafts. And yeah, yeah, he was quite a character.

SPEAKER_05: 53:18

Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's funny you mentioned brownies too, about giving up on brownies. I did Cub Scouts for one year, and my mom made me stick it out through the year because I was like, ah, and I didn't uh go beyond that one year in Cub Scouts, but there's that there is also that one story in the in the book uh about the Cub Scout gathering. And I, you know, in retrospect, I don't remember if that was like, that's it, that's the final straw. I'm not coming, I I'm done with this place, but probably had a lot to do with it of me being just finished with Cub Scouts and all that stuff because it just wasn't my thing. It's like I like and still do. I'm really comfortable in in individual situations, small groups and everything else. But when we get into a giant group situation, my skin starts to crawl a little bit. I I can deal with a crowd that's going to like a baseball game and everything else, but if it's a crowd that has to interact with each other, it's interesting that I still to this day are like, okay, I gotta put on my mask and my armor and go in there and do that. Whereas if I was going to meet eight people, I'm like, hey, what's going on? Hey, yeah, up here. Special handshakes by the time we leave. Here we go, you know. I'm sure part of that is genetic wiring, and part of that is just, like I said, coming up as a latchkey kid alone.

SPEAKER_01: 54:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 54:32

It becomes comfortable. Even though you're like, I don't really like this, it's comfortable.

SPEAKER_01: 54:37

It's interesting to me as I listen to your story and we're having this conversation today, and you don't have to answer any questions at all. And this is your story to tell. Although I know our listeners are like, How does this story go? What happens here?

unknown: 54:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 54:56

On the PIG, we share a lot of stories of life, love, loss, and legacy, and we talk about loss in all of its forms. All of us have lost somebody to death that we love very dearly. The three of us here have lost many people who are no longer walking the face of the planet, including our beloved mothers, um, who we all loved and cared for very deeply. As a boy, you grew up with a single mom without a dad. You weren't able to play baseball because of your diabetes, so you lost some health, you lost that nuclear family. There were some other losses that you talk about in the book, in the story itself as it unfolds. I don't know if you have any thoughts about or willing to share or talk to us about how those experiences shaped not just your childhood and the movement through your life, but then as you became an adult and you became your own man, you know, you became a husband, you became a father. And then the story takes quite a different turn later in life. And so, anyhow, I just I I would love to explore that a little bit with you if you're open to it.

SPEAKER_05: 56:13

Sure, sure, absolutely. Yeah, and um you know, look, my mom was 30 when she I was 30 when she passed. Um your mom passed earlier than my mom did. But at 30, I still felt like when when she passed, I felt like I was eight. You know, it that's that's what happens, you know. It's eight-year-old, eight-year-old you operating this adult body that is is trying to, you know, keep it together, as you said. And you know, I lost the baseball, lost that you know to me, there is just life was just there were challenges that you had had to overcome. And I always felt like eventually things always worked out. Eventually things always came around, and I didn't know what you know what the the cycle timing was of things. I was just confident, and then I found, you know, I found radio, a pirate radio station in in high school, and I was just enamored. It was it was like it was almost as enamored because I had loved to listen to music and radio and I became almost a m when I learned how it worked and how to do it, I became almost as enamored with that as I did with baseball. Uh so it kind of was a replacement to a degree to for that time and whatnot. I mean, I still played, I played ball in high school, played baseball in high school, played some basketball in high school, and you know, dabbled around. We still had fun. But, you know, when it came time for when my the year my mom passed, and it's in the book this way, I talk a little a lot about growing up in that small, I call it a small town, even though it was adjacent to New York City. Small town surrounded by eight million people, right?

SPEAKER_04: 57:52

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 57:53

I only know my own experience and my own brain, but I'm sure, and I when I talk to some other folks who, you know, my friends that I grew up with and everything else, I said, Yeah, it felt like a small town, even though it wasn't. I don't know that it's the same experience anymore, because a lot of that has to do with how much we were bombarded by here's the rest of the world, here's everything else, every moment. So I don't, you know, I think you would have to literally live in a small town to feel that now. Whereas I don't think you had to then. But when I got to that year, the tumult that happened of that year, and it's uh for me before discovering, before my mom passed, before even discovering my mom had cancer, the tumult that happened in that year. I I call those the most two most challenging years of my existence on this planet. I hope that they stay that way. I really would like not to have two more. Um, the two most challenging years of my existence because of all the change that kept coming at me, everything that was happening. I'm work, I was working in radio and I was, I I luckily right out of school got a job in New York City. And I was working behind the scenes, driving on weekends and working weekend shifts on all these stations all around. And the boss I had, I kept bringing him air checks and saying, I could be on the weekend, you can put me on. And finally he said to me, he said, uh, your air check's getting better. He said, But you're not a union member. If you can join the union, I'd have, yeah, I might think about it. So I was like, Oh, I gotta join after. Let me find out how much it is. It was like$900 to join. I'm like, I don't have$900. Okay. The job I have, I gotta start putting money away, putting money away, put so it took about six months. And I came in one day and I walked into his office and I just put my aftercard down on there. I said, What do you think about this? He looked at it, he had like kind of a panicked look on his face. He's like, I said I'd put you on the air, right? I was like, Yes, you did. He's like, All right, can you do Sunday mornings from six to noon? He said, For for two hours you'll be running this syndicated show, and then from eight to noon you'll be on. I was like, Here? This rock station in New York? He's like, Yeah. I was like, Oh, you're probably yes. He goes, Oh, and but you have to fill out this other paperwork because now we have to pay you. Because this is a union gig, so you're gonna get paid your usual$12,000 for your walk around the hallway and help everybody gig. And then you'll get paid almost that much just for being on the air in New York weekends. So I was on the air in New York at 22.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_05: 1:00:16

And and like every one of the stations I had worked at that part-time, they're all like, hey dude, I'm your best friend now. Hey, dude, I call me. So I'm I'm doing that. And then the station, like in it's radio, the station got sold. Probably put me on because he knew the station was getting sold. So I do it for about six months. And the station gets sold, and the new people come in and they change the format, and everybody gets fired, including me. I was also doing commercials for them at the time. So it was kind of one like, you know, where they just swept everybody out. And I got a call back and said, Can you come back and help us do commercials? Because they said the DJs we hired don't know how to do them. I'm like, Well, I told you that when I was leaving. So but anyway, I end up going back and I do that for about another two years, and I'm sending out tapes and resumes. I just want to be on the air. I just want to do the stuff, and nothing's happening, nothing's happening. So I finally go, if it's not happening by the end of December, I quit. And I ended up quitting and I quit. And then I ended up that from there I got a job through someone who worked with me in New York in the Tri-Cities, Tennessee market. It was market number 92, Johnson City, Kingsport, Bristol. And I had spent my entire life in New York and New York City. So uh you remember the old show Northern Exposure? For me, that was like southern southern exposure going down there. I just it was a it was a one-year adventure and just yeah, living in the mountains and just you know, our tower was up on Hainab and they said why why is it on Haina? Because High Nob is the tallest place around here, and you can see all five states from Hainab if you go up to Hainab. Now I apologize because I have to talk like that when they go there because that's when we drove down, I drive down there and I'm moving moving in and driving down there, stopped Cracker Barrel, right? Right, about two hours outside. And the young guy who serves us, probably the same age and whatever, the young guy who serves us, we hand like to to pay on the way out. He goes, Senator Matt. I said, What? Senator Matt. I said, What did you just say? He said, Is everything all right? I was like, Oh, yeah, I'm so sorry. We just came down from New York and I'm he's like, New York, huh? I was like, so I was there for a while and then I moved to Florida. And in Florida is where I go there, went through various format changes and all the rest. I'm actually writing a book about that because there was so much drama in in what happened there. That's where I came to the point in the book, uh, I call it Friggin' Florida, of all the drama happening. I was, it was, we were really successful ultimately down there. And I had people, you know, at that point, I go to conventions, I do this or that. I had people coming at me with job offers. I'm like, okay, okay. And my mom wanted to move down there and be close to, you know, retire and move down there and be close. And part of that was me helping advocate because my ex was as a first-time mom was struggling and and and it was affecting everything. So yeah, again, too young, too stupid, and just trying to make things happen. And a lot of I try, you know, as far as even my mom coming down, had I had the conversations, more and better open conversations with my ex, it might not have ended the way it did. But ultimately, then I started getting these job offers. I was like, you can't move here now because I don't know where I'm gonna be. I don't want to have to move you again in six months or whatever. And ended up going to San Francisco for a while, which was another wild thing that didn't work out the way it did, and everything got explosions behind there and anger and oh, just my gosh. And then ended up landing in LA. Um, and during that is when my mom got through and had the cancer diagnosis. Again, I outline it all in the story. Each one of these steps were so dramatic and so filled with angst. And then ultimately it's I'm handed the cake or handed at the end is oh, your mom has ovarian cancer and it's terminal. And then even that was not the end of that story, as you know from listening, because it just continues, continues. And she passes, which was ultimately so deeply painful and dramatic. And then I go in and all I want to do is clean out her stuff and just keep whatever narrative I knew because everything had changed so much over those, you know, those uh it was a it was like a five-year period, but really that one 18-month period, everything had just gone crazy. I just need to be able to hang on to my own narrative. And I open up that nightstand, I'm going through the stuff, and I find all the stuff I found in there, including the baseball letters that she wrote, she wrote to Sparky Anderson and Yogi Berra and Vin Scully and all and had letters from them, which was amazing. And there were other letters that were pen pal letters, which made me go, What's happening here? And and then there I finding out, going, I call it the arrow in the forehead of like this has to be my father. And it was like, and I was like, I just didn't need that right then. But obviously I did. Yeah, but in my world, I was like, too much, too much, stop, stop, stop, you know, and it wasn't because I needed to, I needed to at least lay the groundwork. For me, you know, I'm the person who goes to the party in the first hour, I might not know anybody unless I know somebody already gonna go there. When I leave, I'll know about 40 to 50 percent of the people, you know, I might know everybody there, but not like want to know them all, you know. But so, and that's how my life is gone. It's kind of I always said, I said, I'm an observer. I don't walk into the room going, I'm here, people. Hey, look at me. Check it out, me. Look, I come in the room and like hi, hi, hi, hi, hi. Now I take the temperature, I observe, do that, and then I'm gonna okay, now I actually need to become part of this. And you know, from looking in retrospect back at how life happened, it's like sometimes I think the universe and life just need to go, no, you need this all now, dude, because it's gonna take you a while to get through this. Because if I give you this in dribs and drabs, you'll push each one of them five to ten years, and then you'll be 150 and in the ground, you know?

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:11

Yeah. So you said a few things in the book in relation to that. You expect grief to come in waves, but this was a tsunami that pulled me somewhere I didn't know existed. And then another thing you said is the floor didn't fall out from underneath me, it simply rearranged itself. And I know so much of that was about the loss of your mom, but it was also about this discovery.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:40

And the rewriting of the story that you had always been told. That was the only thing you ever knew. And so not only were you redefining family, but you were redefining identity.

SPEAKER_05: 1:06:54

Yeah, when when it first happens, I call it like you arrived home late to your place, the lights are all out, you're just trying to get to the bedroom, whatever, but somebody rearranged all the furniture. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:07:04

So it's like first analogy. Yeah. The first thing is I'm bumping into everything and or falling over things. The second is who did this and why? Right. And the third is I didn't need this right now. I'm just trying to get to the bedroom without waking everybody up. Yeah. Um, so yeah, uh, it's like, yeah, floor being rearranged, and it was just the reality was, and I I I came out, you know, I there was part of me that went, should I just reach out? Should I just reach out and say, I know now? Should I do that? And as I detail on the book, there were reasons why I didn't. And I even asked some family members, trusted family members. They were like, don't think you want to get involved in that. I was like, okay. It once hearing that, I was like, you just confirmed what I was hoping to hear. So that's why I just kept putting it away. Now I didn't know the story of what was happening on the other side, other than what I'd heard, you know, and it was like, and which is a lot, there was a lot of truth, but the telephone game often magnifies things, you know, beyond. So it's like, oh wow, especially since, like I said, my family was so good at no controversy. We don't have controversy, we don't have strange stuff in this family, nothing weird, nothing weird, nothing weird.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:19

We are normal, rarely.

SPEAKER_05: 1:08:22

People get mad at each other and then they stay quiet. They don't they don't argue, you know. It's that that whole thing. It's like my aunt and uncle would bicker downstairs a bunch, but never get into like vehement arguments. You know, I didn't, I only had one parent upstairs, so there weren't vehement arguments going on. There weren't, there wasn't loud stuff happening, people coming in and getting in each other's face or doing something and figuring out how to resolve that. So conflict resolution was something that basically in that I wish somebody at age like 14 would have pulled me out and go, You're gonna be in this concept conflict resolution class for about five years, so you can figure out how to absorb it, observe it, and act properly. My ex's family, on the other hand, was very loud at arguing and and fighting with each other and all the rest and deeply loved each other but would fight. And I was like, how does it even work? How does that even how does that I don't understand that? I don't we're we're exes for a reason, but I don't mean to besmirch her or her family in any way. Every every family has its challenges to deal with and and ultimately, as I said, they're all good people. We just some some folks are wired differently and get wrapped differently in in and distracted in doing that. But yeah, it's just there was no I I just kept going. I I I don't want this to be. So even though I know I should reach out, and I did reach out once to um, like I said, you know, I have a sibling, I did reach out because the sibling had reached out to me and I didn't know if the sibling knew. And I reached out and got a sorry, no longer at this address. And it's like, oh, okay. But I just kept that letter from me and the sibling. You know, wherever you have your desk where, you know, prior to being able to do everything online where you'd have all your bills and you sit down to pay checks, you know, twice a twice a month and everything else. And that little credenza thing, I kept that letter. I took it with me. I had my mom's stuff and I had that letter. I had that letter, kept it with me. And, you know, as you know from listening, it ultimately, I mean, whether it's an energetic connection or not, ultimately it took 12 years, but it paid off. It paid off 12 years later. And uh, you know, when in ultimately being able to connect, and it was I called the universe, but my siblings' refusal to just say, no, that's just how it is, and persistence is is probably what did it. Now, there was a long period of time where there was no attempts at connection or anything else like that. So, you know, from that point of view, we both were kind of just like life, we're living life and we got to get through this. But something happened. Something happened universally that made my sibling reach out to me.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:11:08

Out of the blue and and blew my mind.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:00

Instead of a noun, and the very intentional choice sometimes that has to be made for choosing family.

SPEAKER_05: 1:12:10

Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, absolutely, absolutely, because look, we're all given, you know, a family around us of whatever it is. And you know, some folks, their families may not be connected through gen genetics and DNA, but there's it's their family. But the problem is just because you're genetically connected or DNA connected doesn't mean you have to keep people in your inner, inner, inner circle.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:37

Right.

SPEAKER_05: 1:12:37

You know, every we all have a family that we all have circles of family and friends, circle, circle, circle, circle, circle, circle, circle, circles. And even with my sib, because there's more than one, I am connected to one sibling, and and my sibling is now also barely connected to the other siblings, but was deeply connected when we first connected. And I kind of had to talk them off the ledge a little bit on that. And I just kept saying, Why are you doing this to yourself? If these people were not related to you, would you associate with them? Would you invite them over for holidays? Would you, would you, would you? And said, No. I said, Well, then you need to think about that. You really need to think about that. And I said, I know initially it's gonna be grotesque dealing with it, including my sib's mother was still alive, including dealing with that. I said, but you really gotta think about you. And then I said, What do you what do the kids think? What do your kids think? And the kids are like, the kids would love that. I'm like, take care of you and the family. You don't owe anything to these people. Yeah, you really don't. I said, because they have not given you, and it's it's not a matter of just throw, throw people away. You know, again, in the book, detailed more. They were just downright nasty and mean and energy suckers.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:13:56

My sib has also said, I I credit you with helping me, because if I didn't have another sibling, I don't know if I could have done that. Because I always felt like, well, I'm different. Maybe something's wrong with me. And I was like, Well, no, no, you're not. You're you're the only one who's actually, I don't want to say I'm not gonna make a judgment. You you're you you're the only one I would connect with. That's uh I'll leave it at that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:18

Yeah. Which is so interesting too. And this probably is we could have a whole nother episode talking about this, probably, but that concept of even within sibling groups, if you are isolated, you can kind of feel like you're an only child, you know, or so disconnected that it changes the dynamics that way as well.

SPEAKER_05: 1:14:43

Yeah, yeah. Well, my sib, my my sib definitely did feel a little bit only childish because of the eight and ten year difference, whatever. So figure by the time we're five, that's 13 and uh 13 and 15. And they're out on their own, they're doing they don't want any anything to do with a five-year-old, right? And also my sibling referred to the relationship with our father, and which also helped me just s see different aspects, a different side, and also understand why decisions were made that were made. Given the time when it was, I can theoretically put on the shoes and go, I very well might have done the exact same thing. I cannot say with any kind of certitude that I would have done something differently.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:15:35

You know, even though I'd like to say we should have just could've could've. Mm-mm. No, getting the full story was so important. And again, like I said, I didn't want the person to to be my father who was my father. And you know, I'm pretty blatant about that in the story, but I still didn't really want it for you know the up the the twelve up till the 10, 11, 12 years that I connected with my sibs. I was like, I the the anger had subsided a little bit a lot, but once I started to get the story, I was kind of like, ooh, okay, all right. I um I understand better now, and it enabled me to come to my version of peace with my father and understand better about it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:24

The amount of closure and compassion that came through your telling of the story almost made the not being able to make a connection even more powerful. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_05: 1:16:42

Yeah, I mean, cause because ultimately a lot of what we live by and remember are instances and moments, and we tend to be able to, you know, as you'll find, you know, you find out when folks get older, hang on to stuff from 70 years earlier as opposed to three weeks earlier. Right. Um because so the amount of impact that that has on your just your threading and your DNA and your your mindset and everything else, it's it's really un almost unbelievable how much is set in not necessarily can be set in stone, but it's definitely set in some dry dirt. So it was really important for me to be able to know more of I still would love to know more of the story, because I don't, and neither does my sibling, but I it's it was important for me to make that connection for me to go, okay, I'm okay with this. I'm okay with all of it. I'm okay with how I grew up, I'm okay with having been an only child with a single mom. I'm okay with mom saying, No, I can't, I'm sorry, I'm just too nervous, I can't let you play baseball in the little league right now. I'm okay, I'm okay with it. Does stuff still sting a little some places? Yeah, because being okay with something doesn't mean the sting entirely goes away, but there's a difference between the sting and the longing, you know? The the longing that hangs with pain is a totally different part of pain than the, ooh, yeah, that was a bad time. Because if you still have the longing with it, when you bring that up, that's got a tail on it, you know? It's like a boat wake, it's got a tail on it, and you don't know how long it's gonna stay with you. So and it and and that means it's never really gone to a point where you can manage it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:26

Yeah. That resonates very deeply with me. Erin's shaking her head because she knows why and how. Um, we have a biological father and adopted father story. And of course, being seven years the older sibling, that long thread of that biological connection um has worked on me much more in my life than it has on Erin. And that's one of the differences that we've had to overcome in our relationship, in gaining empathy for and understanding for each other's own life experience. And your life experience was the identity of this human being was always a secret. And then that secret was revealed after your mom had actually passed. So you never had the opportunity to speak with her about that and navigate that journey and that road of discovery with her. In fact, you said secrets are just love stories told in the wrong order.

SPEAKER_05: 1:19:34

I would have so much liked to have been able to, but as I said before, given the me I know and the journey I've been on and my evolution emotionally and intelligence-wise and whatnot, I don't know that if I had discovered that and ma I yeah, I would love my mom to have lived another 20 years. Yeah, but I don't know that the first, at least the first initial year of knowing that, I would have really and it would have enhanced our relationship. I don't know. I can't say no, can't say yes, but I do know there's a good possibility it might have put a big dent in our relationship, and I don't know that I would not have done we say do something, don't do anything stupid. I don't know that I wouldn't have done anything to far as just blowing the whole thing up. I don't think I would have, but I don't know that I wouldn't have. Now I know that I wouldn't where I'm at now, but then with so much going on and you know, rolling through, you know, I I I had just like I said, I had just turned 30, so you're still mentally 25 years old. And when you're 25, you're still really like, oh my, I don't have to go to school anymore. This is really cool. Um so there's that to it. I just think that I I would not have dealt with it properly because I also liked resolution and justice and everything else like that, and I was the first to say something about it, even though it didn't make people feel comfortable in the room. I wouldn't say a lot about it in my family gatherings because I'd say one thing and I'd be like, everybody's uncomfortable. Okay, I'm going upstairs. See ya. I feel like, you know, in many ways, would have just been I wouldn't say hurtful to my mom, but it might have also damaged her relationships with her sisters, yeah, which were, you know, her closest. I mean, she had one really, really close friend, but uh who knew. Um, I found out eventually who knew because that's the person who confirmed it for me. But her sisters didn't know. Yeah. She was gone, and I asked them, and like, we don't know. We don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:40

So and that friend confirmed it in a very unique and interesting way.

SPEAKER_05: 1:21:47

Oh yeah. Yes, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:48

Yeah, that was a really that was that was really cool.

SPEAKER_05: 1:21:52

A masterful way to confirm without confirming.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_05: 1:21:57

Yeah, to I I can confirm this, but I actually did not betray anyone's trust trust and in doing so.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:04

Boy, you'd make a good detective.

SPEAKER_05: 1:22:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like good, which I thought was per it was perfect because that was their generation. You know what I mean? They've they were gonna they were gonna they would take secrets to the grave if they had to, my mom did.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:18

Yep.

SPEAKER_05: 1:22:19

But I had laid it out enough, empathetically enough in the letter that I had sent to her that she's like, I kind of gotta help him, but I can't. So if I don't say, if I don't say yes, I don't answer yes, what how do I so I I'd really be curious to know how many times she rewrote that or wrote it on scrap paper, thinking, what can I write? What can I say? What can I write? What can I say? But did and ultimately sent it. And it was like, okay, now I know for sure. Now I know the whole story. And again, in the book, the there's more about what went on. There's a whole lot of stuff that went on in discovering this that was related. It was a lot of it was related to finances and things, and it just it's so deeply layered in finding this out. It's more than just like, oh, I got the name of somebody who I don't really know, and this, uh blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it was so deeply entwined and layered that doing nothing was probably the safest thing to do at that moment.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:16

Yeah. So it was so interesting when you were talking, and Kelly referenced this because you know, she and I are seven years apart. And so, even as biological sisters who always had each other, we felt worlds apart so often, you know, in so many ways. And we did have very different experiences growing up. And because of that, she was, you know, privy to more details and information about our childhood and our life growing up than I was, and even when our mother was dying, and we talk about this in past episodes where Kelly she was trusted with information that specifically told, you know, don't tell this to Aaron, you know, protect Aaron. And and you said something in your book, and it really struck me when you said it, and Kelly and I have noted it preparing for this conversation because I feel like this is often a it's not a universal truth by any means, but it is definitely applies to your situation, it applies to our situation, and I think that it probably applies to a lot of people, where you said she wasn't hiding me from the truth, she was protecting me from its consequences. And I think knowing that, like having that insight and wisdom and being able to just rest in that protects us from those feelings of resentment because it would be easy to go there, right? Like, why didn't and I'm sure you did, just like we have done. Like, why didn't she tell me what? Like, why, why, why, why, why, why, you know? And it wasn't likely out of a spirit of keeping secrets or keeping things hidden as much as it was a spirit of protection as a parent. And it's hard to not have respect for her in that, you know. That's a beautiful thing, you know, that she really felt like she was doing this to protect you.

SPEAKER_05: 1:25:28

Yeah, it was, you know, a lot of the the anger and everything else is why, why was I wronged? But being wronged is a personal judgment, you know, and what the what's the level and everything else? That's all about judging, you know, scoring, having the life score sheet and everything else, and go, well, I was cheated or I was wronged. And yeah, we can all feel that way about certain things and different things, you know, and it's just a matter of like, oh, I was cheated in this in this game I played uh when we played Yahtzee, they cheated. That's that you know, that's that's this big. I was cheated out of my father. It's like, you know, that but is it really that is magnified, was all magnified by the fact that my family just didn't talk about things and feelings and things like that. And again, not to blame them because that's who they were and that's how they were raised, and that's I get it. I totally get it. But not being able to talk about it made what was, you know, a s uh I'll call it a wrong day, a six on the wrong scale feel like a 14, you know. But ours only goes to 10. No, it goes to 14 for me. Uh, you know, it's it's a matter of figuring out again. It's easy for me to say that now because I have the perspective and and you know, having parented and everything else, I get it. But for me, and you mentioned something that really struck me, it's about you guys talking about your different perspectives growing up and how you had to find a meeting ground on various things. Now you don't need to share what and all the rest, but have being a parent and having my older two be five years apart, which isn't quite seven, but it is five. So there's been a number of things where I've tried to help navigate without stepping in and going, I'm leading here. And oftentimes I've been the in between without trying to be that in-between. I was like just going, you know, almost there like therapy sessions. Well, have you really thought about this and that? Have you really can you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is not to say you're wrong. I'd never say you're wrong because it's your experience and this is where you're at. But it's important for me as a parent to make sure that whatever divide that appears every now and then between them is like a little drip in the road as opposed to a river.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:27:43

Um, because I it's so important that they stay, they don't have to be best, best friends, but they have to be friends. They have to stay connected. And even if they're like, he's very different from me, they're very different from me, and everything else, it's okay as long as you accept that. As long as you accept that and go, okay, I'd still go to bat for you anytime because you're my sib.

SPEAKER_02: 1:28:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:28:04

So that that that's what's really, and I'm I'm happy for you guys, obviously. Obviously, you're doing this, and unless you're just doing this as your therapy to figure out if you can get along, which I think would have made this conversation a whole lot different, but you never know. You know, it might be you might both be great actors.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:22

No, but you nailed it. You know, the beginning of this journey working on the documentary series with Chris Howard with the boxes. We've given him an honorary doctorate degree in therapy because it really was. And there's even an episode where he says, I just I thought everything was just great. I didn't realize what was actually really wrong. It took us a while to actually get to that. And through the process, we really have been able to recognize our differences and not just accept them but celebrate them. And I think that that's one of the joys of being on this journey. And my children are six years apart. And so it's an interesting perspective having been the seven-year-old sibling, and then also having these two children that are six years apart. Aaron's are very close in age, but all of it is a journey, right? All of it is a journey. Life is a journey, it's a wild adventure, it's an exciting adventure. And throughout our life, there are all of these experiences and circumstances that come our way. And we wind up doing a lot of healing through the process of just living. And that is healing from loss, it's, you know, navigating through grief, rebounding from our own failures and missteps, you know, all those things that come along. But it seems to me that writing this story from what you've shared with us and what comes through from the book is that this was a very healing journey for you.

SPEAKER_05: 1:29:59

Yeah. Absolutely. For the uh the various versions this book took, the various ways going through it, again, from the performer slash producer's side of this, trying to figure out how to navigate this was really uh difficult at times because I had to third person it while I was there in first person and go, okay, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. And there are versions in there where I removed and changed things and everything else because I was like, nope, too mad here. A little too mad. It's a little too personal, and it's that's not gonna connect with folks. And I don't wanna, I don't wanna villainize anyone in this. I don't wanna villainize that. Were there versions going back that perhaps had a little more villainization in it? There were, but that was part of the learning process. And the I I needed to work through it, let it go. It's almost like um, you know, when they have people who are in relationships uh and they they're they've broken up and whatever, write that letter. Write that letter where you will say all the worst possible things, all the most angry things, most horrible things, use all the foul language, go write that letter, never send it, put it somewhere safe, and then someday go back and read it in a month, go back and read it in two months on the same day, and then someday take it and burn it when you're ready. Take it and burn it when you're ready. Yeah, so yeah, I mean, we have to allow ourselves to heal because pain is an intense pain, and even sadness are intense emotions, just like love is and happiness. They're different, but I almost feel like they're equally intense and they can be addictive. They can be your endorphins go, right? You're it's like, oh, I'm on my endorphins. No, I'm on my endorphins because I am so off right now. I am so you know what I mean? It can become addictive. So what you have to realize is am I addicted to working out and doing yoga, or am I addicted to eating bags of candy? Sure, for a week that might be fine eating those bags of candy. Not me, it's diabetic, but for a week that might be fine eating those bags of candy. But you have to realize it's just not it's not good for you in the long run. And then you, you know, we get what we give. So if you're in another, if you're in a relationship, whether it's with another person, another adult, or you have kids or anything else, what energy do you want to be giving to them? What lessons they will learn by watching you more than listening to you? Okay. Because when you talk, they're especially when they get to age 11. Once they're age 11, until they come back at some point from college, either during college or just after, until once they're age 11, they're like, ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, uh, you're just trying to tell me what to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even though it might be the boldest and the most important truths ever, you know, but if they've observed you acting in a certain way, that resonates. And then it also helps make you the words you say come in bold print or italic sometime because they've already observed you and they go, okay, uh, yeah, I got it. I understand it. I I've put it over here and it's I've got it. It's on the nightstand, I got it. Don't worry, as opposed to out the other way. Because it's like nobody wants to take advice from somebody they don't think follows that advice. The easiest analogy for me was going back to coaching baseball. I co-managed the team with my friend Ray, and my friend Ray had been in a motorcycle accident when he was younger. So he had one arm which was kind of a little bit lame. So Ray could throw, you know, he'd throw batting practice every now and then. I went out in the field and did my best to try to injure myself every practice because I was running with them, sliding with them, diving, rolling. You know, I ended up, I ended up actually, you know, my shoulder went out because I would throw 300 pitches at batting practice three times a week. I would because I was like, if these kids, you know, I saw some of the other coaches and everything. These kids will not take instruction and advice from people they look at that they don't think can't do this or don't do it. Cause then it's just, uh, you read that in the book. You said whatever, you don't, you don't know. But if they see you doing it, it becomes real. Ooh, okay. So that's oh, that's how I position my that, that's how I'm I stay loose and position myself for a ground ball in the infield. I get it. Don't just tell me how to do it, show me. Yep. And if you can do it, then I'm like, oh, he can do it. I'm not trying to show off, he's not trying to show off. He's trying to help me do it. So when he says to me, Okay, you know, get on the balls of your feet and bend those knees, come on down, make just swipe the glove once with the dirt. Just swipe it once with the dirt so that you know you're low enough, and then you're good. And don't stay down there while the pitcher's walking around on the mound, because then your back's gonna hurt. That's how you get ready. Just get ready each time, ready each time, ready each time, because then when that ball comes to you, you'll make the amazing play, and you'll remember that for weeks, if not years, of your life.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:49

God, I love that.

SPEAKER_05: 1:34:50

Sorry, another baseball analogy. I don't know, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:52

Don't apologize. I love it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:34:54

Look, we went out of order here in how the story rolls and whatnot, because we started with some concepts and some theories and whatnot, and I get it. But ultimately, you know, the story is uh it begins with me coming to empty out my mom's apartment, and then I flash back basically as I find things, as I find things when I'm doing that, it gives me the opportunity to flash back to childhood, flashback to all these events that were going on, and flash up back to what led up to me being there. So there's a little time jump going on in each chapter that goes on, but it gives me the opportunity as I go through, as I made these discoveries, to kind of go, oh, let me tell you why this is important, or let me tell you what this means and why it's here and why we're here like this. Once we get past the unpacking and the all the major discoveries, the rest of the book, and that's where I didn't know how to go or where to go, and that ultimately until it came together that one night, I said, you know, I think I need to share what I learned, because people will extrapolate what they can from this story, but it helps them when they have an example. Just like I said, example of showing somebody how to feel the ball at third base. It helps when they have an example. I'm not saying be like me. I'm not saying treat your situation like I treated mine. I'm just saying here's an example. I know that this helped because, and let me tell you why it helped. Apply it as you will to your own life, or don't. It's fine. You don't have to. I'm not trying to force anybody to do anything, but I want to give you the opportunity to see with things that you came through, here's a different perspective of it, and here's a different way to think about it, which would have changed everything and can change everything for you. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:29

Oh, it makes perfect sense. And it's almost an invitation for other people then to explore what is hidden in their own nightstands, what's in their own hidden drawers. And it did that for me. Just really caused me to reflect, look introspectively, you know, into my own life. And, you know, Kelly and I say almost every episode in our conversations with each other and with people. And it's the reason that we launched this podcast is because hearing the stories of others helps us create a more meaningful connection to our own. It is why we tell the stories that we do, it is why we have incredible guests on, like you, to share your story because somebody is going to hear your story, and they are going to create a more meaningful connection to their own. Some aspect of that, something is going to touch somebody deeply in some way. It's an extraordinary story. You are an amazing storyteller, and I really enjoyed listening to you tell your own story in the audiobook. It's really powerful.

SPEAKER_05: 1:37:55

Well, thank you. That's that's I think that's the only way it could have ever, for me, anyway, that's the only way it could have ever happened and been done. And it has to do with who I am, who I've been my whole life, and then ultimately my career uh in doing that. I think it enabled me, I was worried, because I've asked folks who've read the print version. I said, Does it print okay? Because I had no idea. And everyone I said, no, no, it's great, it's great. Because I it's printed, you know, it's transcribed basically verbatim from me talking. And I had to put in spacing and separate lines and everything else because I use a lot of music and effects and things in the audiobook. My biggest concern was that. And I've gotten thumbs up so far that it works, that it works. Because I when I write, I write and I do this in emails too. I write like I talk. You know, it's what I learned to do. It was easy for me to learn to do it because that's what I wanted to do, but it's what I learned to do 20 something year 25 years ago, 30 years ago. When I started this career, I learned to just write like I talk. And a lot of it had to do with, well, you got to write 15 in 15 seconds. You got to get something done. Get all this in in 29.7 seconds. Get all this in in 14.7 seconds. Get all, I was like, well, and make an impact. Oh, geez. Oh my gosh. Okay. How do I do it? Well, you know what? I I started out like everyone else and just wrote the words. And I was like, nobody's paying attention to that. That's boring. How do I get somebody's attention here? How do I, how do I keep people's attention? How do I, when I say what I say or when I write what I write, how do I make them actually feel connected to this? And that can be, you know, yeah, it doesn't always have to be connected, and I'm ha ha laughing. It can be connected in something serious. How do I how do I connect with so that was what was really important for me to to get to bring, you know? I I just I I I feel I'm happy that it turned out the way it did.

SPEAKER_01: 1:39:46

Well, it shines with humor and heart and authenticity. And I will say that one of the things that I've enjoyed most about getting to know you, Rich, has been the authenticity that you bring. The same person who's here with Aaron and I today on the podcast is the exact same person that I read in written word in the book, and the exact same person that we hear tell his own authentic heart first story. So thank you for sharing it with us today and with all of our listeners. And we want to share with everybody how they can get in touch with you, get the book, get it downloaded, and follow your journey.

SPEAKER_05: 1:40:33

Yeah, it's available. Um, you can go through Amazon, which will take you to the Amazon link, the Audible link, or the Kindle link after the first of the year. I'm not sure when this podcast will drop. So after the first of the year, it'll be more widely available beyond there too. And you can reach out to me. It's easy to get me. My handle and Facebook and Instagram is at Rich Burner, R-I-C-H-B-O-E-R-N-E-R, and LinkedIn, same thing, Rich Burner. Those are my three places that I go. For many years, I was not a dedicated social media person. So you won't see that I have 25,000 to 200,000 followers. I have a small group of folks that are in there, but it's just a matter of I was able to, and this book helped too. Getting back online, I was able to reconnect with a whole lot of folks, especially through Facebook that I had been for many years. But I think through COVID and everything else, I just kind of receded from a lot of that. And yeah, I mean, like I said, you can just go to the not so only child, my true story, Amazon, and it'll give you all three options on on how to grab it. If you already have an Audible membership or a Kindle membership, it's probably gonna cost you zero dollars, zero cents. So it's easy and it's quick, it's a quick read, 190 ish pages. And if you want to listen, about three hours total, give or take. Like I said, I put it, I tried to put it together so people could listen on the I'll call it on what the imaginary commute to work so that the longest, the longest possible chapter is probably 21 minutes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:42:05

Oh, I love it. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of that. We will absolutely post the links in our show notes uh so people can just you know click and go right to getting that book. And of course, we highly recommend it. And we can't thank you enough for sharing your time and your story and all the wisdom and insight with us today. It was so incredible. And with that, in closing, I would love for you to share with us your personal PIG. You know, that our PIG is purpose, intention, and gratitude. Yours may be different, but I would love for you to share what your personal PIG is or what your purpose, intention, and gratitude is for being here with us today.

SPEAKER_05: 1:43:00

I would say mine is BYB. Okay. Not B Y O B. That's different. BYOB is totally different. BYB is a condensed version of be your best self every day. By doing that, that's different, that's a different version every day, too, because we're dealing with different versions of ourselves when we wake up. If we had four hours of sleep, if we had eight and a half hours of sleep, oh my gosh, please. It's it's a different thing, it's a different challenge, but you got to think how what is the best version of me today, and use that not only in when you're doing, when you're creating, when you're reaching out, how you're going about your day, use that with everybody you connect with, everybody you see, every opportunity you have, try to say hello. You just a wave and a smile, a wave and a smile. And and you know, so many folks are just so introspective and locked away anymore, or on their phone and everything else like that. I I don't do it to try to be obnoxious to go, hey, get off your phone, but I will take every opportunity to talk to folks, you know, go in if I'm grabbing a coffee somewhere and how's the weather? Person starts talking and be like, How's how's today going for you? How you doing? Is it crazy here today? What's happening? Just take a minute and go and and do that way. I mean, I I spent 30 minutes last Friday night talking to a home challenge gentleman who was sitting on a bench because he leaned forward and I said, I'm sorry, I don't have any cash. And he's like, I'm so sorry. I mean, I mean it's not the first time this happens for me. This happens to me a lot. My wife makes fun of me, but he started talking. I want to hear a story, I want to know. I mean, uh nothing to do with it. I'm not trying to rescue him, not trying to do it, not trying to be a saint. But you know, if if you allow people to be recognized that they are here and seen and heard, it gives them a little bit more sustenance to go on the next day.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44:42

Yeah. Well, and every story matters.

SPEAKER_05: 1:44:47

Yes, yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44:49

That story matters. And so thank you for being your best self and seeing him in that moment and taking the time to listen to another person's story. And I would venture to say that hearing his story, whatever it is, helps you become an even better version of yourself and probably helps you create a more meaningful connection to something in your own life. And that is what this is all about. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_05: 1:45:23

100% and thank the two of you. Thank you for having me on. Thank you for checking out the book, and thank you for doing this. This is a this is a great venture you're on.

SPEAKER_01: 1:46:07

We hope today's conversation offered you insight, encouragement, or even just a moment to pause and reflect on the story you're living and the legacy you're creating.

SPEAKER_00: 1:46:16

If something in this episode moved you, please consider sharing it with someone you love. A small share can make a big impact. You can also join us on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn and connect further at thepodcast.com.

SPEAKER_01: 1:46:31

And if you're enjoying this podcast, one of the most meaningful ways you can support us is by leaving a five-star rating, writing a short review, or simply letting us know your thoughts. Your feedback helps us reach others and reminds us why we do this work.

SPEAKER_00: 1:46:46

Because the PIG isn't just a podcast. It's a place to remember that even in the midst of grief, life goes on, resilience matters, and love never leaves. Thanks for being on this journey with us. Until next time, hugs and kisses everyone!